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Complementary and alternative medicine: Beyond users and nonusers
1Department of Health Management, The Hebrew University, POB 12272, Jerusalem, Israel. ashmueli@md2.huji.ac.il
Complementary Therapies in Medicine
|November 16, 2006
Summary
The heterogeneity of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) users is significant, often exceeding differences between users and non-users. Understanding CAM consumer behavior requires looking beyond simple user/non-user distinctions.
Area of Science:
- Healthcare research
- Public health
- Sociology of medicine
Background:
- Traditional studies categorize individuals as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) users or non-users.
- This binary classification may oversimplify complex healthcare-seeking behaviors.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the heterogeneity among individuals who use CAM practitioners' services.
- To analyze this heterogeneity in the context of conventional medicine utilization.
Main Methods:
- Examined CAM user heterogeneity using three variables: user-type (CAM only vs. combined therapies), provider-type (medical doctor vs. other), and referral-type (physician vs. self-referral).
- Data derived from two large-scale health surveys of the Israeli urban population (aged 45-75) in 1993 and 2000, involving 4500 participants.
Main Results:
- Multivariate analyses confirmed substantial heterogeneity within the group of CAM users.
- The variation among CAM users was frequently greater than the variation observed between CAM users and non-users.
Conclusions:
- Moving beyond a simple "users" versus "non-users" dichotomy is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of CAM consumer behavior.
- The study highlights user-type, provider-type, and referral-type as important dimensions for characterizing CAM use.
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